The Longest Inning

The baseball game flickered silently on the television above the bar — bottom of the ninth, two outs, full count. Martin watched the batter's eyes, remembering how Julie used to say that's where you could see a man's soul. Three years divorced, and he still couldn't watch a game without her ghost sitting beside him, smelling of vanilla and expensive regret.

"You're taking that vitamin shit again?"

Martin looked down at the supplement organizer he'd placed on the coaster — a Wednesday compartment spilled onto the scarred wood. "Doctor says my D levels are garbage. Turns out sunlight deprivation is real when you work in a basement."

"Bull." Sarah slid onto the stool beside him. She looked good, or maybe he was just lonely enough to make the softening around her eyes seem intentional. "You're forty-five, Martin. You're not dying. You're just... fading."

"That's encouraging."

"I calls 'em like I sees 'em." She signaled the bartender for something amber and expensive. "Remember that cat you got me? That anniversary?"

"Buster."

"He died last week."

Martin turned his glass. "I'm sorry."

"Don't be. He was twenty. That's like a hundred in cat years." She stared at him. "You know what I thought about when they put him down?"

"Don't do this."

"That carnival where we won that goldfish. The one that lived for six years against all probability." Her voice caught. "Against everything."

"His name was Fish."

"I know his fucking name, Martin." She downed half her drink. "I called you that week after I left. Wanted to come home. You didn't answer."

"I was working."

"Bull." She set the glass down harder than necessary. "You were being stubborn. Like always. Like your father."

The baseball player struck out. Game over. Season over.

"I'm seeing someone," Martin said.

Sarah laughed, but there was something broken in it. "Of course you are. Is she nice? Does she take vitamins? Does she pretend to care about baseball?"

"She asked me to move in."

Silence stretched between them, thick and uncomfortable. Sarah's hand trembled slightly around her glass.

"And?" she whispered.

"And I don't know." Martin swallowed his vitamin pill dry, felt it stick in his throat like a truth he couldn't quite choke out. "I keep thinking about the goldfish."

"What about him?"

"How he kept swimming. Even when the water got murky. Even when we forgot to feed him sometimes." Martin looked at Sarah — really looked at her. "Some things survive neglect, Sarah. Some things don't."

She finished her drink and stood up. "You always did know the difference between the two."

Outside, rain began to fall. Martin ordered another vitamin pill from his pocket and washed it down with bourbon, watching the empty baseball field where something had ended, and nothing had quite begun again.